


wait for me (i'm coming)

by cedarmoons



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Depictions of Drowning, Fairy Tale Elements, Gender Neutral Apprentice, Multi, Mythology References, Orpheus and Eurydice Myth, Polyamory, Pregame Speculation, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 01:35:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14462268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cedarmoons/pseuds/cedarmoons
Summary: “I need them back,” Asra says.“Do you, really?” the Magician asks. White light glimmers in their glowing purple eyes, amused, almost malevolent. “Or do you justwantthem back?”Asra/MC, Orpheus/Eurydice AU.





	wait for me (i'm coming)

**Author's Note:**

> me, writing a oneshot that's 15k: why do i have no chill?  
> playwithdinos, love of me life: [...] you would be able to write shorter stories if you maybe stopped repeating the same word three times a paragraph  
> me: wasted.jpg

“Where do souls go, after they’re gone?”

The Magician tilts their head at him, purple eyes glinting as they shuffle the tarot between their hands. One of their ears flicks toward him, then swivels back. “Now, that’s a question, isn’t it? What even _is_ a soul? Is it what gives life? What makes you human? What makes you think they can _go_ anywhere?”

Asra stares at them. They smile at him, then turn the cards face-down and spread them over the table, in three arching rows. They lean back on the velvet cushion, clasping their hands in front of them, resting their elbows on the tabletop. They’re waiting for him to pick, but he doesn’t want to choose one. Not yet. He’s not ready for what the cards might show him.

“I need them back,” Asra says.

“Do you, really?” the Magician asks. White light glimmers in their glowing purple eyes, amused, almost malevolent. “Or do you just _want_ them back?”

Holding their gaze, Asra reaches out and flips over a single card. A lioness stands on a field of grass, wreathed in golden roses, head bowed and paw clasped over her chest. An infinity symbol glows over the crown of her maned head.

Strength.

The Magician’s slight smile does not waver; they remain as enigmatic as ever, even as their purple eyes linger on the card. Asra swallows, watching the Magician stare at the card, unable to hear whatever Strength tells them. After a moment, they flick a single finger, and the cards sink into the tablecloth, vanishing from sight. They lift their chin, tapping it with a clawed fingertip.

“What do you know of gods, Asra?”

Asra keeps his expression neutral. “Little and less. Though I’m willing to believe in anything.”

“Mm, yes. That’s the problem. Believe in would-be gods, and they get a little big-headed.” The Magician tilts their head, smiling slightly. “I’ll help you with this little quest of yours. When you leave this shop, you take the shadowed path, and that will get you started.”

“The shadowed path,” Asra repeats, flatly.

“Yes.” Their smile doesn’t change, but their eyes crinkle in the corners, betraying their amusement. “Your teacher taught you well, didn’t they? How did they phrase it—like being at the bottom of the ocean. The darkest, most silent place on earth, though perhaps not the loneliest. The deeper you swim, the stronger you get, and the less light shines through. They also compared the shadowed path to the sun—more powerful, and thus more dangerous. I wonder which fits best.”

Asra does not reply, though he remembers that lesson well—the intensity in their eyes, their beseeching tone: _Do you understand, Asra?_

“Ah, you’re hesitant. Where is your Strength now?” The Magician’s lips pull back, slightly, revealing hints of sharp teeth.

Asra lifts his gaze from his hands, spread flat across the tablecloth, and meets the Magician’s purple eyes. “I would go to the ends of the earth for them,” he says.

“So you say. But I wonder, once you realize what this undertaking demands of you, will you still mean it?” The Magician hums, vaguely intrigued. “One last word of advice, young Asra: be careful of whom and of what you trust. Once you embark upon the shadowed path, you leave the safety of your gateway. I wonder… Has your teacher taught you well enough to withstand the trials before you?”

It is a clear dismissal; a rhetorical question, meant to leave him thinking. Asra stands, leaning slightly on the table to steady himself. Once he has the strength to stand properly, he salutes them: pressing the knuckles of his right fist into his left open hand, bowing deeply at the waist, so deeply it cannot be mistaken for insult. An ancient salute, a recognition of the other’s prestige, an acknowledgment of the honor they are owed.

He remembers his teacher’s lesson well. _The Arcana’s power is vast and unknowable, but they are creatures of protocol and honor above all_ , their voice whispers in his ear.

“Thank you, Magus,” he says, using his teacher’s term for the Arcana, “for your help. It is most appreciated.”

“Don’t look back, Asra,” the Magician says. When Asra blinks, they’ve vanished, and he is alone in the backroom of the shop. On the table in its place are two freshwater pearls and a ruby, carved to resemble a teardrop. Asra looks around the back room of the shop, incense burning his nose, and takes a deep breath.

He takes the pearls and the ruby, stuffing them into his empty messenger bag. He lifts the strap up and over his head, hands flexing around the worn leather. It had been theirs, once, before—before everything. He clenches his jaw and closes his eyes, breathing deeply. In and out; balance in all things.

When he feels steadied, he lowers his hands and leaves the backroom, the beaded curtain rustling in his passing. In front of him is not the warm interior of the shop, smelling of incense, but the night ocean and the shore. Above him, dotted through with diamond-bright stars, auroras of green and purple and orange snake across the sky. Waves of midnight indigo crash upon a beach of milky white sand, thunderous to his ears; they had been silent when he arrived here. Footprints, glowing bright blue, stretch across the sand, all of which are uniform in shape and color. He can’t tell if they’re supposed to be moving forwards or backwards.

As he stares at his footprints, they begin to shift, branching away from the sea toward the forest that stretches high, high above his head. The shadowed path. Even from here, close to the sea, he can sense cold, hungry eyes on him, lying in wait beyond the underbrush.

 _Do you need them back, really? Or do you just_ want _them back?_

Asra sets his shoulders, and sets on the shadowed path. When he reaches the underbrush, he sees a long wooden walking staff leaning against the smooth black bark of a massive tree. The wood gleams in the darkness, wet with sea spray. Asra takes hold of it, cringing when the rusty squeal of an empty, dark lantern attached to the shepherd’s crook of the staff swings toward him. The candle inside is brand new, wet, unlit.

It takes Asra three tries to light it; the flame sputters, wavers, but never flickers out. Its golden light burns like the sun, though, somehow, the shadows of the forest seem to grow only darker in its light, consolidating into pitch black. They peel back from the ground, revealing a narrow path that he can only barely fit through. Some of them snap at his ankles, drawing blood, and though he flinches, he forces himself to keep his gaze steady in front of him.

 _Don’t look back_ , he thinks.

“Wait for me,” he whispers. “I’m coming.”

—

Ilya doesn’t know what he’s expecting when he visits the library that morning, but it isn’t seeing Asra curled up in front of a window, Faust dozing on his chest and a book open on his lap. The magician usually isn’t up before noon, and he’s never stayed overnight in the library; passing out just before dawn is most certainly not his style.

Well, he’ll just have to take Asra back to his rooms. Nothing else to do for it.

Faust lifts her head as he approaches. “Hey, Faust,” he murmurs. “Asra, wake up. Let’s get you out of here before Valdemar shows up—”

He reaches for Asra, and Faust _hisses_ at him. Ilya draws back, alarmed, and watches her draw back into the coils of her body, still hissing. Ilya frowns at her, then reaches for Asra again. Her hisses grow louder, more insistent, and he pauses, wariness staying his hand. He’s never known Faust to make a sound in the entire time he’s known Asra—she has always been cheerful, and enjoyed squeezing the breath out of him.

 _It’s her way of hugging_ , Asra had always said, always with an inscrutable smile, but Ilya himself had never been quite certain of that. _She likes you._

But he has never, ever heard Faust make a sound.

This is—different. A little frightening, if he’s being honest with himself.

“What’s gotten into you?” he asks, brow furrowing.

He reaches for Asra a third time, and Faust lunges forward, snapping. Ilya flinches away, just fast enough to avoid a bite—Faust glowers at him, mouth open, fangs extended like two little milk-pale hooks. The rest of her body is coiled tightly, stiff and ready to spring. He stares at her, wide-eyed, any morning drowsiness replaced by a rush of adrenaline that has him wide awake and alert.

“Faust, what, what was—what was _that?_ You’ve never—you’re scaring me,” he stammers out. Her mouth closes, and she slumps a little. For a moment, he _swears_ she looks almost apologetic, guilty, even. But then he remembers that she’s a snake, and a snake can’t experience human emotion. He _really_ needs to get more sleep. Ilya runs his hand down his face and looks at Asra, mouth drying as a new thought occurs to him. “Is it Asra? Is he okay?”

Faust withdraws into herself, until all he sees is her head and looping coils of purple. Ilya turns his gaze to Asra, still deeply asleep, chest rising and falling in long breaths. But he hasn’t so much as twitched since Ilya arrived.

Ilya slowly reaches for the open book in Asra’s lap. Faust watches him, silent once more, eyes gleaming like rubies. She lets him take the book, lets him rotate it so he may read it. Ilya stares at it for approximately five seconds before he registers that it’s written in a language he’s never read, never even seen. It’s not his people’s sacred language, and it’s not Gabraldine script, or the trade language spoken by the majority of Vesuvians. Not Hjallen runes, or carefully printed Aransi text. Not Prakran, which shares an alphabet with, oh, eight other languages, off the top of his head.

He doesn’t—he doesn’t recognize _any_ part of this language. Not the letters, not the syntax, nothing. He doesn’t understand a word, not even when he tries to read it from right to left, or when he flips the book. The rest of the text is written in exactly the same odd script.

How does this library have a text written in a dead language? How had Asra found it? More importantly, how had he understood it? What—what was in it?

“Asra,” he murmurs, lifting his eyes to Asra’s unmoving figure, worry sparking sickly in his breast, “what did you do?”

—

The Hermit’s lantern, though lit by a single candle, surrounds him in an aura of warm golden light. It pushes the black, writhing mass of shadows that swarm the forest. He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking; he doesn’t know how far from the shore he has ventured. The shadows skitter at the edges of his vision, moving in a way that reminds him of swarms of insects. Several times he feels small prickles of pressure run down his spine, like beetles.

Each time he wants to reach down his shirt and shake the invisible insects free, he stays his hand. Every time his heart begins to race in panic, every time he feels scarlet eyes watching him from the shadows of the forest, he grounds himself. He breathes, in and out, for there must be balance in all things.

He thinks: _don’t look back._

Sometimes, a gust rushes through him, chilling to the bone, but the light does not waver. As he keeps walking, the gusts grow stronger, more frequent. He staggers at one, falling to his knees and gripping at his staff. Ice blooms over his body, bringing with it searing pain that makes him double over, gasping, one hand falling to the ground. When his fingers dig into the soil, feeling the warm, damp earth under his palm, the Hermit’s light finally sputters, casting him in darkness for a few terrifying moments.

The wind howls in his ears, and he thinks he hears their voice. _Asra_ , they say— _Asra, turn back._

A beetle runs over his ribs, scurrying over his heart. He clasps his hand over his heart without thinking, hand blackened with soil, leaving a handprint over his shirt. There is no insect underneath, but a chill runs through him nonetheless.

“No,” he whispers. “No. Wait for me. I’m coming.”

He staggers to his feet, steadying himself on the Hermit’s staff, and keeps walking. Eventually, the hiss of writhing shadows fades, and even the candle makes no sound as it burns, melted nearly to a stub. All is stifling silence; he cannot hear the beat of his heart, or hear his breaths, or even listen to his footsteps, treading upon the forest ground.

The lamp’s candle, nearly burnt down to a stub, flickers when he reaches a clearing and almost sputters out. Asra glances toward it, and the flame revives, weakly shining light, illuminating the darkness. In front of him stretches a meadow of black waist-high grass, blooming with white asphodel blooms.

Formless shades mill around him, bearing glowing orbs of light within their left breasts; none of them seem to notice him. There is no path that he can see, but far ahead, past the asphodel meadows, lies a river of black water whose sounds he cannot hear—and in front of that river stands two massive pillars of black and white marble. A is engraved on the left pillar, glittering gold, and Ω is engraved on the other, also gilded.

Alpha and Omega. Beginning and End. Aransi symbols of magical power, right up there with the infinity symbol, the Kemet ankh and the triskele.

He thinks of his teacher’s smile, warm and bright as sunlight, and his heart aches under his breast. _The world works in cycles_ , he remembers them telling him, one long lesson bathed in lamplight. _Life and death, infancy and old age, spring and winter. Beginning and End._

They’d been—so beautiful, that night. Like light itself.

He pushes forward, through the hip-high meadows, careful not to interact with any of the shades that dot the landscape. A few of them flicker and fade out, disappearing from view, and Asra tries not to think of what that could mean. He walks until he reaches the riverside, standing before the pillars that stretch high as mountains.

The Hermit’s lamp goes dark.

The next instant, a massive pale form lands in front of him, directly between the two pillars, startling him so badly he drops the Hermit’s lamp. The ground swallows it at once, and he looks up, into the ruby eyes of a snowy owl. She is the first sign of color here he has seen since entering the forest. Her lavender mantilla falls in gentle folds over her half-moon-shaped peineta. A pearl is inset in the middle of her peineta, flanked on left and right by identical but empty sockets.

Asra bows low, saluting her, until her voice shatters the silence, loud and startling as a clap of thunder: “Young Asra. He who loved the Sun. I have been expecting you.”

He who loved the Sun? That’s new. He puts it aside, focusing on the Arcana before him.

“High Priestess,” he says, straightening. Something warm trickles down the curves of his jaw; he touches his ears, and pulls back fingers darkened with deep grey blood. Lowering his hands, he takes a steadying breath and lifts his gaze to her piercing ruby eyes. She watches him, silent, and he wonders if she can see into the very soul of him. “Did the Magician tell you I was coming?”

“Yes. They are a talkative sort, are they not?”

Asra laughs, then coughs into his fist. “I have a question for you, High Priestess,” he says. He waits for her to incline her head, a silent permission, then asks, “Where do souls go, after they’re gone?”

The High Priestess is the mediator between reality’s depths. The guardian between the conscious and the unconscious. Beyond that, she had been his teacher’s favorite Arcana. She will know the answer, and not speak in riddles as the Magician had. He knows it.

The High Priestess’s head tilts, lavender folds of her mantilla swaying gently. “If they are gone, how can they go anywhere? Your question is ill-phrased, young Asra.”

He closes his eyes, takes a breath, another, another, ( _balance in all things_ , his teacher whispers in his memory) and opens his eyes. “May I try again, High Priestess?”

She clicks her beak, the sound echoing through the meadow and rustling the asphodel. “You may.”

Asra takes several minutes to think of the best way to word his question. “Where do souls go, after the body dies?”

“Much better,” she approves. Asra bites back his smile. “They pass into my care; I serve as psychopomp, and grant them safe passage over the river, that barrier between life and death, reality and dreams.”

“You equate death and dreams?” Asra asks, eyebrows raising.

“What are dreams, if not possibilities that die upon awakening? What is sleep if not preparation for death? What is death, if not a long sleep?” She lifts her head, gazing out at something behind him, and Asra almost turns around. He clenches his fist again, thinking of the shades in the meadows, and nods. This side of the river holds the dreamers, then. The other side bears the dead.

“I understand,” he says. “Then I would like safe passage across the river, if you will permit it, High Priestess.”

“I will not.”

Asra swallows, fingers tightening on the strap of his messenger bag. Before he can reply, she speaks, her voice thundering through his very bones. “The land which I guard is not the safety of your gateway, young Asra. It is reserved for the dead, and you do not as yet belong on those shores.” He opens his mouth, and she clicks her beak again, wings shifting. “You seek to walk the land of dreams and death; you seek to restore your Sun; you seek to claim a power reserved for ancient gods. Do you deny it?”

_Tell me, Asra, what do you know of gods?_

_(Little and less._ )

“All I want,” he says, dry-mouthed, “is to have them back.”

“And how much do you want that?” the High Priestess asks.

It is a long time before he answers, though when he speaks, there is no uncertainty in his voice. “With all my heart.”

“Ah,” the High Priestess murmurs, grieved. “With all your heart.”

Her grief trembles through him, making unexpected tears prick the corners of his eyes. Asra swallows, inhaling deeply. She hops forward, flapping her wings once, the gust somehow both warm and cold at once. She leans toward him, until the curve of her beak touches his nose and he can see his wide-eyed reflection in her ruby eyes.

After several long moments, moments that seem to stretch on for an eternity, she hops back with a coo, settling between the pillars of Alpha and Omega and standing regal, proud.

“Who am I,” she says, “to deny a Lover?”

Asra’s breath catches and he falls to one knee, saluting her. “Thank you,” he breathes out, lifting his head. “ _Thank you_ , High Priestess.”

“Ah, patience, young Asra. There is still a toll. What do you offer as payment?”

Asra approaches her. Apprehension sits sickly in his chest, a stone he cannot lift or roll away. He has nothing, except the Magician’s gift of a teardrop ruby and—and pearls. He glances up toward her peineta, carved to resemble a half-moon, inset with three shallow circular carvings, only one of which bears a pearl.

He fumbles open his messenger bag, taking the two pearls out and holding them in the palm of his hand. The High Priestess leans forward, and he lifts his hands, straining to return the pearls to their proper place. Once the second of his two pearls is fitted into its circle, all three begin to glow. Above him, the inky clouds part, revealing a full moon, shining silver upon the meadow. The asphodel glows under the pale new light.

The High Priestess rears her head back, beak clicking, and begins to retch. Asra steps back in alarm, watching as her head twitches, jerking in a half-moon circle. A few moments later, a golden coin falls from her mouth. She snatches it in her beak and turns back to Asra, depositing the coin in his cupped palms. It’s golden, soft in his hands; a pomegranate is printed on one side, and a curved half-moon on the other.

“Put it in your bag, and do not take it out again except in your most dire need,” she says. Asra obeys, nodding, placing the coin beside the teardrop ruby. When his bag is buckled and tightened once again, she coos, wings shifting.

“You have until the next full moon to complete your task,” the High Priestess warns him. “After that, Death will have rightful claim upon you, and you will be lost forever. Eat and drink nothing that is offered to you, even if you fear offense. The land of Death is gluttonous, and will find any excuse to keep you.”

He nods, saluting her once more. “Thank you, High Priestess, for your help. It is most appreciated.”

She spreads her wings, each of which is twice the size of him, and takes to the sky, wind gusting in his face. He watches as her form grows distant, disappearing among the clouds, and he is left alone once more—without the light of the Hermit’s lamp, but bathed in the moon instead. Asra takes a deep breath and walks between the pillars of Alpha and Omega. The mist concealing the river surface parts, revealing a half-beached gondola. It groans as he climbs in, swaying under his weight. Asra takes the pole lain over the bottom of the gondola and pushes off, always looking forward.

“Wait for me,” he whispers, and his voice echoes softly in the mist. “I’m coming.”

—

It’s nightfall, and Asra is still asleep. Ilya paces in Nadia’s chambers, arms crossed over his chest, fingertips drumming against his elbow. Faust lifts her head as he passes her for the thousandth time, stretching out her neck, the way she always does when she wants scritches. Ilya glowers at her, though he can’t bring himself to actually be angry.

“I’m still put out you let Nadia bring Asra here,” he tells her. Faust’s tongue flicks out. “Don’t look at me like that. You tried to _bite_ me.”

Faust tilts her head, the very picture of innocence. Ilya sighs and sits on the chaise, carefully, reaching out and stroking the underside of her chin. “The power you wield is evil,” he murmurs, not meaning it in the slightest. She closes her eyes, tongue flicking again, then slithers forward onto his arm. He suppresses a shudder, even as he lets her slide up his forearm and bicep to rest herself across his shoulders. “Hey, uh, no squeezing, okay?”

Faust rubs her head under his chin, tongue flicking at his skin, and he sighs, stroking her smooth scales. The door opens, and Nadia strides into the room, her gaze flicking immediately to Ilya, brow creasing in concern.

“There has been no change, I take it?” she asks.

Ilya shakes his head. “I fed him, but so far—nothing.”

“Lucio will want his fortune read soon,” Nadia says. “He was not content to play cards. I even let him win.” She half-sighs after she speaks, as if it’s a great hardship, and Ilya imagines it is—Lucio is terrible at cards, especially the quick-thinking games Nadia so adores. And he’s a terrible loser, too. It’s become easier to just let him win.

“Yeah, well, I guess we’ll just have to tell Lucio he can take his fortune and shove it—” She clears her throat, and Ilya ducks his head, a wordless apology. “If he wants Asra, I’ll distract him,” he volunteers. “I’m a good, uh.” He pauses, trying to think of the word and coming up with nothing. “Scapegoat? Distraction? _Distraction_ , yes, that’s it.”

Nadia clicks her tongue and crosses the room, reaching out and taking Faust from his shoulders. She deposits Faust back on Asra’s chest, then takes Ilya’s gloved hands. She helps him stand and guides him to her bed. He protests, a wordless sound of dissent, but she hushes him. “Doctor. You have not slept in thirty-six hours, don’t think I haven’t noticed. You will sleep, and Asra will have returned to us in the morning.”

“What if he hasn’t?” Ilya asks. He bends over, starting the process of unbuckling his boots. Her bed is so soft; just sitting on it makes his eyelids feel like they weigh an elephant’s ton. He pries his boots off, lowering himself until he’s flat on his back, and she lies down beside him, resting her cheek on her wrist.

“Then we shall consult the other magicians and see what can be done. I have placed that book you gave me in the care of my most learned scholars, by the way. If there is a way to decipher it, they shall learn of it. But until then, I have decided that I will trust Asra.”

She sounds so calm, so certain. It relaxes the knot of anxiety that has been growing throughout the day. Ilya turns onto his side, facing her, and offers a small, genuine smile. “Thank you, Nadi.” Her eyebrows rise, and he feels a flush over his cheeks. That’s _Asra’s_ name for her, not his, she’s still the Countess of Vesuvia, oh, he shouldn’t have done that, assumed such familiarity, why had he done that, _why_ had he—“I mean, erm. Sorry. Thank you, Countess.”

“You may call me Nadi, if you so prefer,” she allows, amusement glinting in her red eyes. “I do not mind.”

“Well, ahm, well, that’s—all right. Nadi.”

“Now,” she says, “sleep, Ilya. We will be here in the morning.”

—

After he crosses the river, a dirt path appears from the river’s shore and parts the meadows of asphodel, extending as far as his eye can see. When he steps onto the shore, a breeze smelling of the shop rustles the grass. He lifts his head, examining the waning gibbous moon, spilling silver-blue light upon the ground. He almost looks behind him, almost turns to see if the river surface had been as foggy as when he’d been rowing himself across, if the gondola has silently pushed itself from the shore or if it will stay on this side of the river.

Almost turns to see if the thing that’s been stalking him since the beach is still there.

 _Don’t look back_ , he reminds himself, and starts upon the path.

As he walks, out of the corner of his eye, he begins to see shades—people, milling among the meadows, their forms shadowy and indistinct. When he tries to focus on a silhouette, it only blurs, hurting his eyes. Not a single one has that orb of light the dreamers had carried; the caverns of their chest are dark and empty.

They’re heartless, he realizes.

The wind whispers as it brushes against him, its voice made of a thousand others. The asphodel sways toward him, carrying the voices between their petals. _We are forgotten. You do not belong here. This land is for the lost, the forsaken, the dead. Turn back! Turn back!_

Sometimes, he thinks he hears his teacher’s voice, lost among thousands. Sometimes, he thinks he hears them whisper his name. And every time, he snaps to attention, looking sideways and forwards but never back. The longer he walks, the more shades cluster around him, drawn by the bright colors of his clothes, a great contrast to the grey and white and black that permeate this land. The longer he walks, the more his colorful clothes begin to fade, and the more he begins to blend in with the landscape.

He stops walking when the path diverges. A massive ash tree, leafless and black-barked like every other tree he’s seen here, stands between the fork in the road; its roots curve up and over the two different paths, like enormous natural arches. Something is carved into the center of each root; the waxing gibbous moon’s light isn’t good enough to see them. Asra approaches the arch on his right side. The arch towers over him, but he can just make out Ω carved into the root. When he glances over his shoulder, toward the left root, he can see A glowing on the root across the clearing.

Alpha and Omega. The same symbols as the ones on the High Priestess’s pillars. Asra traces the Omega sign, frowning, feeling the wooden grains, rough under his fingertips. The second time they’ve shown themselves to him.

 _What are the balanced numbers?_ his teacher’s voice asks, a ghost of a memory, so long ago. The breeze smells like the shop, like _them_.

 _Two, three, seven, twelve, forty_ , he thinks.

_Remember that, Asra. You are so good at remembering._

“Where do souls go, after the body dies?” a dual-toned voice asks, startling him.

Asra steps back from the root carved with Omega, gaze snapping to the shadowed ash tree that stands between the two paths; moonlight spills over its inky trunk, revealing a human-sized, two-headed raven, hanging upside-down from the enormous ash tree. A single rope is tied around its ankle, and three out of its four eyes are blinded, leaving only one eye to peer up at him. Its two wings are folded behind its back, gleaming oily in the darkness. Both the wings and the heads face opposite directions, giving him no indication as to where he needs to go.

Refocusing, Asra salutes the Hanged Man, bowing low. After he straightens, he adjusts his messenger bag, which had been slipping off his shoulder. “I’m hoping this journey can answer that question,” he replies, fingers flexing around the old leather.

One raven head, the left head, laughs—a croaking sound, cold, and slithering down Asra’s spine like ice water, making him stiffen.

“Journey—or quest?” the right head asks.

“Are they so different?” whispers the left, mournful. “He seeks to conquer Death.”

“Ah, but can Death be conquered, or only delayed? What is Death?” poses the right, beak parting in a way he could almost think was a smile. “Tell me, Asra, fool, magician, lover, what _is_ Death? Is it a beginning, or is it an end?”

The last word echoes through the meadow— _end, end, end._

A riddle. Asra’s eyes narrow in thought, drumming his fingers against his messenger bag. The minutes stretch on, and the right head begins to laugh—grating, harsh, yet more cheerful than the left’s laughter. Its beak is parted in a way that makes Asra think it’s grinning at him.

“Stuck?” the right head asks. “Need a hint?”

He thinks of when he’d first been learning tarot, when he had still used his teacher’s deck, not his own. He remembers them holding up their Death card—a grinning skeleton clad in gold, holding a knife to the throat of another skeleton. _Remember, Death is not necessarily death,_ they’d said, with a smile—that same smile, bright as the sun, the first thing that he’d loved about them. _Death is—_

“Change,” he says, lifting his gaze to the Hanged Man. “Death is change. Neither beginning, nor end. It is both.”

Both heads start to laugh, a cacophony of noise that makes him wince, hands lifting to his ears on reflex. The blood from the High Priestess’s voice has dried, now, crumbly, and leaves a streak of rust on his fingertips. The ash tree groans, and suddenly, leaves in every color of the rainbow begin to unfurl in its branches; its blooms are the only sources of color in this place. The vibrancy had leached from his clothes long ago, leaving him a figure of brown and white and black and a variance of greys.

As he watches, the ash tree grows even larger, larger than the High Priestess had been, until it is only anchored to the ground by its roots, and the rest of it sits in the sky. The ground begins to shake, showering dirt from roots shaken loose, and Asra can’t keep his balance. He falls to his hands and knees and watches, wide-eyed, as the two paths shiver and shift, snaking over the grey grass to merge as one path, a path that goes straight under the blooming tree.

“Well done,” the raven heads whisper as one. “Well done. Clever Asra! Young Asra! Your teacher’s praise was much deserved.”

“Go, Lover, and restore your Sun!” the right cheers.

“Walk the path reserved for gods, and fear not Death’s ire,” the left whispers.

“What is the path reserved for gods?” Asra asks, getting to his feet. His heart pounds at their mention of his teacher—when had they spoken of him, to the Hanged Man? What had they said? Their praise—how long ago had that been?

“The path reserved for gods is the path you walk,” the left sighs. “Do not look back, for if you look back, you are lost.”

“But that doesn’t answer—” Asra starts.

The raven heads turn toward him as one, and for a moment it almost looks as if the Hanged Man has one head. Asra bites his tongue, and salutes them, rising slowly to his feet. “Thank you, Hanged Man, for your help,” he says. “It is most appreciated.”

The heads swivel again, once more facing opposite directions. Asra takes a breath, fingers flexing, the tips pressing against his sweaty palms. After he exhales, he inhales again, and exhales once more. Balance in all things.

Then he glances up at the moon—waxing gibbous, quickly reaching first quarter—squares his shoulders, and walks under the roots of the tree. As he passes beneath the Hanged Man, he hears a head ask the other, “ _Can_ godhood be defined? What _is_ a god, precisely?”

“Ay, there’s the rub!” the other replies. “What _is_ a god…”

Asra walks until he cannot hear the Hanged Man’s voices, not even on the wind. The heartless shades grow closer, pressing in around him but never straying onto the path he walks; the bolder ones, the ones who don’t have a glowing orb in their chest, reach out and try to touch him. Asra doesn’t let them, always using magic to push them back several feet. He doesn’t know why, he just knows that he _can’t_.

He can’t shake the feeling that if one shade touches him, he’ll get swarmed.

The shades cluster around the path, watching him with divots where their eyes should be. He stops, just once, when he sees a shade that resembles his teacher—and it lunges, seizing his wrist. Asra startles, rearing back, but the shade holds onto him with an icy grip. The fog that conceals its features dissipates, revealing a face Asra doesn’t recognize—young, wide-eyed, freckled, but above all, scared.

“Help,” they whisper.

Asra tears away and smoke cascades across their features, concealing their face with shadow once again. Shaking, Asra glances down at his wrist to see that it has turned grey, matching his clothes and the landscape. A hand-shaped barrier divides the grey and the brown of his skin.

His exhale shakes, and he looks up, gaze tracing the path that cuts through the meadows. The asphodel has been drowned out by shades, gathered along each side of the path to watch him. Not a single one of them has a heart.

He swallows, listening to his shallow, near-panicked breathing, and forces himself to his feet, breathing deeply, closing his eyes.

In, out. In, out. In, out. Balance in all things.

 _Don’t look back_ , he thinks, opening his eyes.

He doesn’t look the shades in the eye—or in the hollows that should hold eyes, but are instead brimming with misting shadows—as he keeps walking, and as the waxing gibbous moon shifts into first quarter. The path curves up, rising over a hill so steep Asra has to crouch to keep his footing, and when he reaches the top, he has to crane his head back until his neck aches.

A massive three-sided statue of granite, all of which face different directions, stands in front of him. Their feet are ringed in a curving wall that’s taller than he is, though he can hear the thunder of waterfalls. He steps back, circling the statue, ever careful to keep his eyes on the details of the statues, and not what lies behind him.

A striped cat, young and smiling, pouring a jug of water into the pool at the statues’ feet—the waterfall mists over his face, but Asra is very careful not to taste the vapor—faces north. Beside her stands a western-facing, older wolf, cupping its palms together, holding water that spills over its fingers to thunder into the pool below. A falcon, the eldest of the three, stares toward the east, its palms also cupped, but no water falls from its hands—as if it’s part of the fountain, but broken, somehow.

He rounds the statue again to find that it has completely turned, facing different directions, and with a small opening in the fountain’s wall. A small stream runs from it, quickly splitting into five different rivers that wind alongside three different paths. Asra looks back at the statues, but nothing has changed about them, other than their positioning.

Star, Moon, Sun. Triple tarot, carved in stone.

Another riddle?

Asra worries at his lip, teeth digging into chapped skin. He hadn’t seen anything in the triple-sided fountain that a teardrop-shaped ruby could fit into. And the Hanged Man hadn’t given him any useful advice, other than to not look back—an echo of the High Priestess’s own recommendation. He finds himself staring up at the Sun, separated from the other two sides of the statue, its water source depleted.

He looks past the Sun, over the shoulder of the Moon, where the first quarter is waxing. He’s running out of time. He paces in the falcon’s shadow, biting at chapped lips and then ragged fingernails. He thinks back to his conversations with the Arcana, trying to find some clue, some _hint_ , some sign that tells him where he needs to go. Which path he has to take to find them.

The moon is on its way to a waning crescent by the time he thinks of the High Priestess, calling him “lover of the sun.” What had she meant? And then, after that, the Hanged Man, laughing at him and saying _go, restore your sun._ Had—had they been talking about this? Alluding to this test?

He glances up, toward the falcon, the Sun, the only third of the fountain that had no water. And then he looks over his shoulder, where the Sun’s path stretches down, down, down the hill, disappearing into shadows and flanked by a river of fire.

 _The shadowed path,_ he thinks, recalling that lesson. _The shadowed path is like the sun._

He smiles, despite himself, and adjusts his messenger bag. “Wait for me,” he whispers, setting upon the Sun’s path. _I’m coming_.

It is a mantra he repeats to himself as shades cluster around him once again. He’s not in a meadow, anymore, but a rocky landscape, cold and alone. The further he descends, the colder and darker and quieter it grows, until he is walking in pitch darkness, unable to hear anything except the stifling silence.

Even his own thoughts seem muted, mere whispers in the recesses of his own mind.

It is the forest, but worse. It is the depths of the ocean, and Asra can barely withstand the pressure. _Wait for me_ , he thinks to himself, his own mantra, now, meant to reassure himself. _Wait for me. Wait for me. I’m coming._

_Please, wait._

—

“Still no change?”

“None.”

“ _Damn_ it.” Ilya walks past Nadia to stand in front of the expansive window, rubbing his hand over his eyes, trying to keep them open. He doesn’t want—he doesn’t want to be sleeping if (when, when, _when_ ) Asra wakes up. He wants to be by his side, ready to—ready to—oh, he doesn’t know. He can’t think past the migraine throbbing behind his eyes, brought about by lack of sleep and worry.

Maybe if he asked a servant to bring him two pots of coffee…? No, three. Good things come in threes, his grandmas always said. The three patriarchs, the three daily prayers, the three meals of Shabbos, though he hasn’t done any of that in _years_. Maybe—he has his prayer shawl in his rooms, maybe it would make a difference if Asra would just _wake up, please, wake up_ —

“Doctor Devorak,” Countess Nadia says behind him, “you are pacing a hole into my carpet.”

Ilya stops at once, looking up. “Apologies, Countess,” he says, automatically, though it does not lessen his guilt. A full teacup sits in her lap, untouched, and she watches him in silence. After a moment, she rests her teacup on the tortoiseshell end table at her side and pats the green velvet cushion beside her.

“Come away from the window and sit with me. We may watch the sunset together.”

He swallows past the anxiety that sits heavy and sickening in his gut. In one smooth movement, he faces her properly, offering a debonair grin. “Why, Countess, if you wanted me with you so badly, you should’ve just said someth—”

“Ilya,” she says, and the words die silent in his throat. He swallows, watching her, and she pats the green velvet cushion once again. They’d moved the couches to a sunny spot, for Faust and Asra both, and their couch sits across Asra’s prone form. Ilya sits and watches Asra’s chest rise and fall five or six times before he can reassure himself that Asra is still just sleeping, and not dead, yet.

Nadia clicks her tongue and reaches up, gently but firmly tugging him down, and Ilya tries to stutter something out—a protest, maybe, he doesn’t know—as she guides his head to rest in her lap. But once he’s lying down, his exhale stutters out of him and he closes his eyes. His fingers drum against his stomach, and he has to fight the urge to check on Asra yet again.

After a moment, Nadia’s fingers push his curls out of his face, and then she begins to run her fingers through his hair. Ilya swallows hard. It’s… soothing, moreso than he had expected. She says nothing for a long time, and he begins to fidget, wondering if she is waiting for him to move, or, or if she’s just doing this for his benefit—

She presses her thumb into his neck, at the divot just under the back of his skull, and Ilya relaxes at once. She returns once more to stroking his hair, watching the sky bleed out before them. “You made sure to visit the Quaestor and my dear husband today, yes?”

“Yes. They don’t think anything amiss.”

Lucio had thought he was lazy and useless for not answering his every beck and call, but that’s nothing new. If Lucio has either Asra or Ilya to belittle until he’s satisfied, he usually forgets about the other for the day. He’d also visited Valdemar under the library, as he’d had to do for several days now, and—just thinking about that makes him nauseous.

It… hasn’t been a good day.

But Nadia’s touch grounds him, and he can’t think of echoing screams with Asra in some strange coma right in front of him. He’d moved Asra for bedsores, hadn’t he? He can’t remember. Just in case, he should move him again, from his back to his shoulder, Faust can sit on his hip or—

“What did you think of our scholars’ translations?” Nadia asks. He sighs through his nose and lets himself stay in her lap. Just a few more moments, and then he’ll make himself sit up. He won’t be a bother to her any longer than necessary.

“Useless,” he replies. The book had been some ancient script, predating even the Empire of Prakra and Kemet before it, and Nadia’s “most learned scholars” had only been able to translate half a page. Some gibberish about “katabasis,” whatever that is, and speaking with the dead through dreams. Utter nonsense, is what it is.

The dead aren’t meant to be contacted, after they’re gone.

“Truly,” Nadia says. Ilya’s gaze snaps from Asra, golden-and-red in the sunset, to Nadia’s face. Her eyes are narrowed in thought, though her stroking doesn’t stop. Orange light makes her face glow. “I see. Nonetheless, Asra has slept two full days, and nothing will wake him. I mislike this waiting as well, but I see no option other than to trust him.”

 _I do trust him_ , he wants to say, but the words won’t cooperate. Ilya swallows, ignoring the dryness in his mouth, and decides not to say anything at all.

—

Everything is still when Asra stops walking. His chest is heaving, his lungs burn, but he can’t hear his own panting breaths—he can’t hear the rush of his heartbeat in the tips of his ears, dizzying and nauseating in its intensity. All he can focus on is the ache of his body, and the weight of heartless shades’ gazes on his back. The weight of a darker presence, hungrier than the listless shades, just waiting for its chance.

He doesn’t want to find out what that is. He glances down, catching his breath, and sees that the grey has spread up his arm, past his sleeve. He glances at the moon, almost a waxing crescent, and rolls up his sleeve, clenching his jaw when he sees the grey reaching his shoulder. His arm doesn’t hurt, but it’s still… unsettling, seeing his brown skin clash with grey.

_You have until the full moon._

His allotted time is almost halfway over. He’ll have to hurry.

He looks away from his body, seeing a mirror-like circular pool of water in front of him where it had not been before. Asra walks to the edge and looks inside. Underneath the water, he can see refracted rectangles of golden light; it’s strange, now, to see color in a colorless world. Each rectangle is carefully spaced apart in a repeating pattern that extends as far down as he can see.

It’s like an inverted—oh. The Tower, reversed.

He hisses a curse, but he can’t hear his own voice, can’t hear the word forced between clenched teeth. The silence swallows everything.

He crouches down, placing his hand in the water—it is cool, and soothing, but he can’t see the bottom. As depthless as the caves outside Vesuvia, the caves his teacher had spent a full day showing him, tugging him by the hand as they swam, their paths lit by underground magic. Asra straightens, closing his eyes.

 _Take a deep breath, and let it last_ , they had said, when they’d taught him this lesson.

He takes a deep lungful of air, smelling the damp of the caves, and holds it. He envisions air spreading to his stomach, his toes, his fingertips, filling him until he has no need for breath. The pressure in his chest grows and grows, but he keeps his eyes closed and holds his breath.

_Let it last._

He waits until that urge to exhale, to let go, gradually disappears, leaving emptiness behind. Then, he dives into the flooded, reversed Tower. The water is clear, glowing orange from the spilled light of the windows. Asra swims to one, gripping the bars of the first window and peering through.

A stag rears up, panicked, as red beetles swarm over it, sucking the very life out of it until the stag is dead and splayed on the ground. The beetles had left nothing of it but an emaciated sack of bone and fur. A cheetah sits above murky water, heedless of the dozens of beetles that scurry through her fur.

The next window is of _them_ , sitting in moonlight, alone and wearing plague linens. His grip on the bars tightens. He knows this isn’t real, that it’s just a memory at best; he’d gotten them out of the Lazaret, taken care of them back home at the shop until—until they passed. Swallowing hard, he lingers just a little longer, because it has been so long since he’s _seen_ them; he’s starting to forget what their smile looks like, what they sound like when they laugh.

Seeing them brings that all rushing back.

Until they turn, and Asra sees their eyes, stained scarlet, so red they’re almost black in the darkness. He jerks away, releasing the window’s bars, and the image fades to nothing, leaving him suspended in silence once again. He swallows, almost reaches back, almost tries to get _them_ back, just to see them again—but then he shakes his head and keeps swimming down.

The third window is different than the other two. The light is brighter, but harsher, making him squint when he grips the bars to keep from floating back to the surface. In front of him is the dining hall at the palace, the table heaped high with food, but—different, a mockery of the painting Lucio had commissioned before he’d been bedridden.

In the center of the table is the Devil, smiling slightly, hands spread. The various Arcana are gathered around, helping themselves to the food in utter silence. He sees the Star, the Sun, and the Moon sitting together, the Hierophant alone, the Emperor and Empress flanking the Devil.

Only the Magician and the High Priestess are absent, he notes. He lifts his gaze, meeting the Devil’s red, burning eyes, and watches its mouth curve into a sinister mockery of a smile.

_Have you come to join the feast, Asra? We’ve been waiting for you._

The voice breaks the silence, echoing around him, booming in a way the High Empress’s voice hadn’t. Asra winces but holds onto the bars, watching the feast from outside, ears still ringing. He needs to let go, but he can’t, he has to keep watching. It reminds him of his childhood, before he and Muriel had found the house in the woods and had been sleeping on the beach: they’d been forced to find scraps, or steal from the market, just to eat each day. That had been the best they could hope for.

Sometimes, when he had the energy, Asra would sometimes make the hike uptown to the richer parts of Vesuvia. He would watch families eat more than they ever needed and throw away the rest: after that, he would go through their trash and bring back whatever was edible. At his first Masquerade, all he’d done was sneak bits of food from the banquet tables and hide them in his pockets, just in case he needed to run. At least, that had been all he’d done that night, up until he’d met the magician who would become his teacher, and then more.

He’d had no idea, then, what they would mean to him.

But before he can dwell on it further, a figure cloaked in black sitting in front of him turns, and he finds himself staring into the empty eye sockets of a grinning horse skull. Asra rears back, eyes widening, but Death has already cast its gaze on him. It pins him, holding him in place like a cat with a mouse trapped between its paws.

He does not breathe until Death turns away, returning to the feast. Afterward, he looks back down—down, down, the Tower’s depths don’t look like they have an end—and keeps swimming. He doesn’t visit another window after that.

He swims until his arms burn, until his eyes blur from the strain of trying to make out features in the silent darkness. He swims deeper, deeper, until the water pressure makes his ears pop (he hears nothing, only feels the pain of it) and presses in around him, like he’s in the middle of the market on a crowded day.

He’s never felt claustrophobic until this moment.

 _Don’t look back_ , he reminds himself. The spell is still strong; he has no need for air, not yet. Not for a long while.

He keeps swimming.

And, then, finally: light. The colors have leached once more, the world slowly returning to grayscale, but Asra barely notices. He pushes himself further, kicking down and down and down, until it’s close enough to touch. He reaches out, gritting his teeth, _straining_ for the light.

His fingertips brush the surface of the water and the world tilts, flipping around him. He emerges from the reversed Tower, gasping (he can _hear_ his heaving breaths, jagged and panicked, but the sound is a relief, too, in its own way), wiping water from his eyes, careful not to let any droplets run into his mouth. He swims to the shore, breathing hard, and drags himself from the water.

He pretends not to notice the sucking sound the water makes when he pulls himself completely free from it. He stares at the grit on his grey forearms, catching his breath, and finally looks up to a greyscale meadow of hyacinth. He staggers to his feet, still dripping, and feels cold water run down the curve of his spine. Once he’s standing, he regards the meadow properly. It’s circular, full of gray grass and pale hyacinth, ringed by black, featureless trees.

In the center of the circular clearing is a yew tree, its branches spread gray and wide, almost taking up the space of the clearing. And in its shade—his breath catches.

In its shade rests a glass coffin, and he _knows_.

It’s them.

He’s made it.

Asra sprints. He catches himself in front of the coffin, pushing aside loose vines and flowers—lilies, poppies, chrysthanthemums, asphodel, all of them colorless and greyscale—that have nearly overtaken the coffin. Underneath them all is a silhouette, featureless and dark, as colorless as the rest of this world.

But he knows. He _knows_.

He glances down, pushes at the curved lid of the coffin, but the vines have overtaken it, and it doesn’t budge. He shoves, strains, overworked muscles screaming in protest, but the coffin’s lid doesn’t even move. He takes a deep breath, looking through the glass, where his teacher’s form lies concealed by shadow.

“Wait for me,” he whispers. “Just a little longer. I’ll figure this out—”

“I knew you would come.”

The words are whispered by a thousand different voices speaking as one. It doesn’t shatter the silence, but pierces it, and slowly, sound returns to him. It had not spoken with the thunderous power of the High Priestess, or the jovial and tragic tones of the Hanged Man, but it makes every hair on his body stand, and makes his spine go rigid.

Asra stares straight ahead, laying his palms flat on the coffin glass, and takes three deep, slow breaths. Then, and only then, does he finally turn around, and see what has been stalking him this entire journey.

Death stands before him, clad in heavy black robes, its grinning horse skull gleaming white under the light of the moon. A hood is drawn up over its head, concealing its mane, and in the hollows of its eyes is only empty darkness. In its left hand, it holds a scythe like a walking stick, its bony fingers thin and long, and the scythe’s shadow stretches across the clearing, looming over Asra and the glass coffin behind him. Its palm is all one fused plate of bone, where there should’ve been four different metacarpals; A is carved into the back of this unnatural bone. Its right hand emerges from its long black robes, the bones of its palm similarly fused; Ω is carved on the back of its palm.

The third time those symbols have shown themselves to him.

A cold tremor runs down his spine.

 _Death is change,_ he thinks, trying to reassure himself. _Not literal death._

“Are you so sure of that?” Death asks, softly, its susurrous voice as dry as desert sands. Its _s-_ es seem to reverberate through the clearing, like a serpent’s hiss. He can almost hear his own teacher’s voice, trapped within the hundred thousand tones of the most ancient Arcana, whispering alongside others long gone.

Asra doesn’t answer. Death’s right hand lifts, slow and aching, and the shadows in its palm shift, becoming a pomegranate: the ripest, most beautiful one he’s ever seen. Asra’s mouth waters, and his stomach clenches, painfully. Suddenly, he feels as if he is a child again—digging through trash in search of scraps or stealing, kept up by hunger pains, always thin, always too-hungry.

“You were hungry at the feast,” Death whispers. Its empty eye sockets bore into him. “Would you like a taste?”

Asra steps forward, then catches himself. After a moment, he salutes Death, right fist pressed into left palm, bowing deeply. “Thank you, Death, but no,” he says. “I hope I cause no offense with my refusal; I have plenty of food awaiting me in the waking world.”

“The living world,” Death corrects with a murmur. “A world in which your Sun no longer belongs.”

The pomegranate dissolves into shadows, and Death’s right hand slips back into the folds of its midnight robes. The scythe’s shadow retracts, just a little, and his lungs feel less tight in his chest. After a moment, Death moves forward, gliding over the ground rather than walking. It stops in front of the coffin, empty eyes staring at the shadowy form underneath the glass.

“I am the most ancient of Arcana,” Death murmurs, lifting its grinning face, looking at him with empty eye sockets. Asra suppresses a shudder. “The beginning and the end of all. I do not discriminate between sinners and saints, young and old, lovers and hermits. I am not the High Priestess, to be swayed by the ardor of a Lover. I bear neither pity nor sympathy for you, Asra, fool, magician, lover of the Sun.”

“Lover of the sun,” Asra replies. The Hanged Man had said the same thing to him. “I don’t… I don’t understand.”

“Your teacher,” Death whispers. “You see them as the Sun. Your light. The very warmth that beats inside your chest. Do you deny it?”

His breath catches. “No,” he says, finally. He reaches out behind him, running his fingers along the side of the glass coffin, feeling the groove where lid meets side panel. The glass is smooth under his fingertips, roughened only by the vines and shriveled flowers that cover it.

“You seek to accomplish what has only been done in ancient stories, what has never been accomplished. You seek to walk the path reserved for gods,” Death says, its every word reverberating through the clearing.

Asra thinks: _what is a god, precisely?_

Death’s breath rattles. “You seek to undo Me. Do you deny it?”

Asra stares into the depthless black eyes. They stare back, into his very soul, eternal and unknowable. “Do you deny it?” Death asks again, its thousand-thousand susurrous voices wrapping around him like a shawl, cold and sinister. His teacher’s voice is there, among the whispers. He hears it clear as day, and can’t stop his shudder.

“No,” Asra replies. Death towers over him, casting him completely in its shadow. It bends down until its grinning skull is in front of his face, and he can smell the desert heat and plague on its breath.

“Then why, young Asra,” Death asks, “would I allow you to leave my realm?”

He can’t think of a good response. There’s no incentive to let Death let him go—there’s no deal he can make that could change its mind. It would take him anyway, given enough time, by old age or accident or otherwise. His fingers—they’re grey when he glances down, the same grey that has slowly been spreading over his body since the shade touched him—grip the strap of his bag, the leather creaking. Above Death’s head, the moon wanes into third quarter. It would almost be the full moon, and then, according to the High Priestess, he would be Death’s to claim anyway.

He thinks of a half-moon, and a pomegranate, and inhales sharply.

Asra reaches into his bag. His fingers close around the coin, and he pulls it out, showing it to Death so the half-moon faces it. He _feels_ its focus shift, relieving him like a great stone has been lifted from his back, and he exhales hard, sagging against the coffin behind them.

“ _Oh_ ,” Death says, almost like a sigh. “Oh, _Papesse_. You sentimental Fool.”

Its right hand plucks the coin from him, and it pulls back, somehow seeming smaller than before. It lowers its head, the horse skull’s grin somehow more sinister when not faced head-on. “Indulge my curiosity, clever Asra,” Death says, the syllables of his name humming strangely in the air, _Asssraaa._ He takes a breath, staring into the empty eye sockets of Death’s skull.

“Tell me, what would you do to get them back?” Death asks.

He swallows.

“Whatever it takes,” he replies.

“Ah, and here I thought you would say ‘anything’—a response best suited for Fools. Well done. _Well_ done.” Death withdraws to the shadows of the yew tree, blending in perfectly, the darkness shifting to hide even its bone-white face. When it speaks, its voice ( _voices_ ) comes from nowhere and everywhere, filling the clearing. “Open the coffin, clever Asra, and then we shall speak.”

Asra’s hands shake. He kneels before the coffin, trying not to focus on what— _who_ —is inside. Trying not to focus on how _close_ he is to getting them back. He runs his fingers under the tangled network of vines and funerary flowers that nearly consume the coffin, feeling for strange grooves or shallows or divots in the glass.

“What was that coin?” he asks, as he searches.

Death’s breath sounds labored, the wheeze of an elderly man in his sickbed. Yet when it speaks, it speaks as it always has, in a whisper echoing with a legion of different voices. “That is not for you to know.”

Asra swallows his frustration and re-focuses on the coffin. He stares at the symbol he has traced a dozen times to reassure himself that it is there, that it is an opening, and pushes the vines and flowers aside. There, etched half on the coffin lid and half on the coffin panel, is a Kemet ankh. The loop of the ankh is a shallow divot, teardrop shaped. With a shaking hand, he reaches into his bag and pulls out the ruby the Magician had given him, pressing it into the divot.

It fits perfectly.

When his hand drops, the ruby glows, and he hears a _click_ from somewhere inside the coffin. At once, the roots shift, groaning as they pull away from the coffin lid, withdrawing to disappear into the meadow. A breeze knocks off the flowers, leaving only clear glass behind. When Asra pushes the lid, this time, it moves.

His breath catches.

“Well done, Asra,” Death whispers, lingering over his shoulder.

 _Hope_.

It is light, buoyant, filling his chest up and up, like an overflowing pitcher, until he thinks he might burst. He springs to his feet, wide-eyed, holding his breath, and shoves at the coffin lid. Glass grinds against glass, and the lid topples over, into the meadow. Asra laughs, tears beading the corners of his eyes, and leans over, facing the shadows that form a vaguely human silhouette. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Death’s hand move, glowing bright.

An instant later, something within the shadow’s left breast flares, the light shifting, coalescing into a golden orb that resembles the bared hearts of the dreamers, on the High Priestess’s side of the river. Asra reaches down, toward their face, and the darkness parts at his touch, revealing achingly familiar features. They’re asleep, their chest still and unmoving, but—but it’s them.

His hands cradle their face, and he leans down, hardly daring to breathe as he presses his mouth to theirs. It is a light, chaste kiss, more a brush of lips against lips than anything else. But something _jolts_ through him, through _them_ , and he feels them gasp against his mouth. He pulls back, wide-eyed, and watches as their eyes flutter open, then rest on his face.

 “Asra,” they whisper.

The smile that breaks out over their face is blinding, the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen. One of their hands lifts to rest against his face and Asra clasps their wrist, thumb pressing into the pulse point hidden beneath thin skin.

Their heart—it’s beating. He can feel it. He can _feel it_.

He laughs, but there is something rough in the sound, choked, almost sob-like. “Hi,” he whispers back, thumb stroking their cheek. He helps them sit up, clasping their hand in his, pulling it to rest against his chest, against his beating heart. He breathes their name and smiles, so widely his cheeks hurt. He’d made it. He’d found them. “I missed you so much. _So_ much.”

“Asra, oh, you’re—why are you crying?”

They smile at him, eyes crinkling in the corners, such a familiar sight he _aches_. He flattens their hands over his heart and cups the back of their neck with his other hand, thumb pressing into the pulse points in their wrist and in their throat, reassuring himself that they are here, they’re _here_ , he made it. He glances down at his hand and sees splotches of brown dotted among the grey, slowly growing the longer he holds them. He hadn’t even noticed how colorless he had become; now, just being here, with them, it’s enough to restore light and color to his world.

He isn’t surprised in the least. He grins down at them, pressing his forehead to theirs, tilting his head down to kiss them again, properly this time—

“That is enough,” Death says, ever at his back. Asra stops, pulls back and turns around, still holding their hand tightly in his. He won’t let them go, never again, not unless they tell him to.

Death stands before him, holding its scythe in its left hand, and the High Priestess’s coin in the other. “You have one last test before you, young Asra. This favor appeases me, for now, but I am still allowed my games.”

Asra waits. Death adjusts its grip on the scythe, and Asra shivers when he feels its shadow stretch over both of them. He tightens his grip on their hand, and sets his shoulders, as Nadi does whenever Lucio summons her.

He’s come this far. He won’t doubt now.

“I’m not interested in games,” he says. Their hand is limp in his, gone slack, and he doesn’t want to turn around and find out why. “We aren’t your playthings. _They_ aren’t your plaything.”

“You may think that if you wish,” Death murmurs, “but I have dominion here, and the moon grows ever fuller.”

Despite himself, Asra looks at the moon—ticking past third quarter, on its way to waning gibbous. He looks back at Death, swallowing. “Will you let me take them back?” he asks.

Death’s grin, somehow, seems to stretch wider. “I will let you try.”

—

 _Do not look back_. That had been it. That had been Death’s final test for him. He had to return to the High Priestess’s side of the river without looking back, and trust that they would be following him. If he broke the deal and looked back, sought them out, reassured himself that they were really there…

_(Then I devour their heart, and they are lost to you forever.)_

Asra takes a deep breath, running his hands over the asphodel blooms in the meadow. The shades are avoiding him, now, bursting with color and light as he is; the moon is almost full above him, just reached waning gibbous. He’s almost back at the river, almost out of Death’s grasp—and soon they will be, too.

He listens, as he has a thousand times since leaving Death’s clearing, but hears nothing. It is not the oppressive silence of before; he can hear his breaths, can hear the rustle of wind through the meadow. It is a silence of absence—absent footsteps, absent breaths, absent heartbeats. All that he can sense at his back is the gaze of the shades, and Death’s hungry stare, and nothing else. Not their warmth, or their breath, or the tread of their feet upon rocky black ground.

Doubt creeps in, but he keeps going. There was nothing to keep Death from holding its side of the deal—and it had already admitted it considered his journey a game, of sorts, for its own amusement over anything else. What if this was another game? What if he had left them behind in that glass coffin and Death was watching him, laughing in silence all the while?

The possibilities spin around and around in his mind, a wheel in perpetual motion. Asra’s fingers twitch, itching to reach back, to see if anything takes his hand, if he would get any reaction. Instead he fists his hands and pushes forward. _Don’t look back._

When he reaches the shore of the river, the moon is just reaching waning gibbous. He’ll have to hurry. The mist parts at his approach, revealing the gondola where he had left it. Asra swallows and wades into the river, ankle-deep, before climbing inside. The gondola tilts under his weight, and he picks up the pole he had used to guide himself across the river. He waits for the gondola to dip again, for the wooden seat behind him to creak under another’s weight, but hears nothing.

His breath catches hard in his throat, anxiety knotting his chest. He has to trust Death, he decides. Even though the Magician had told him to be careful, to be wary, and Death had told him that it considered his journey here a game. His Master had said they were honor-bound beings above all, but Death had made no promise to him. It had no obligation to keep its part of the deal.

Asra swallows and pushes off the bank. The gondola glides through the water smoothly, but the sound of the river doesn’t comfort him. All he can think about is holding his golden compass the night he’d heard of their death, watching its arrow spinning and spinning, helpless as he hadn’t been in a long time. All he can think about is Death’s smile, its hiss of _I bear neither pity nor sympathy for you_ , and the Magician’s warning to be careful of what he trusted.

His chest is too tight. He can barely breathe. If he just—if he could just glance over his shoulder, reassure himself—if he could _know_ that they’re okay…

 _Don’t look back_ , he thinks, desperately.

_Don’t look back. Don’t look back._

_Don’t look back—_

_Don’t look—_

_Don’t—_

He turns, looking back over his shoulder.

They stare back at him, sitting with their hands in their lap, their heart glowing soft in their chest. Their lips part in shock and they wince, gaze snapping up to his. “Asra,” they whisper, and their face contorts in pain. They double over, grimacing, their hand pressing over their heart. “ _Ah_ —”

He can’t move. Can’t breathe. He is frozen, paralyzed, helpless.

 _No_ , he thinks. _No, nonono, please_. **_Please_** _._

Their heart flares, a bright, almost blinding light—and then the light dies, like a smoldering coal finally cooled. Asra screams. Shadows pour over the edges of their form, spilling over their face and sweeping down, concealing their face from him. A hand of unnatural bone, its fused metacarpals bearing a carved Ω, emerges from the gray water. It grips their wrist and pulls them, unresisting, from the gondola. He watches them hit the water and go under, throat gone hoarse, voice silenced by fear.

_No._

 

 

 

 

 

 

_No, please._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He does not think. He does not breathe. He does not cast.

He drops the pole that had pushed the gondola through the river waters and dives in after them.

They’re sinking, arms outstretched, shadowy form darkening the further they descend. The river seems bottomless, and the water seems to resist him—it feels like a thousand different hands on him, pulling on his clothes, trying to hold him back. Asra kicks himself free, pushes himself down even though he’s aching, his muscles screaming in protest, used past the point of no return. Desperate, he stretches his hand out, kicking further into the deep, watching helplessly as they slip from their grasp.

 _No_ , he thinks. _No, wait for me, I’m coming._

The next time he reaches for them, their fingertips brush against his, and he kicks once more, desperate. It’s enough for him to grab the palm of their hand and _yank_ , toward him, hard enough that it stops the descent of whatever is pulling them down. He yanks again, adjusting his grip to hold their wrist, moving down until he can wrap an arm around their waist. Then he looks down, to see what is still slowly pulling them both down, further and further into the river’s depths.

Death grins up at him, its inky mane floating around its skull, a bony hand wrapped around their ankle. He stares into empty eye sockets darker than the water that surrounds him and feels something cold slide down his back. He is frozen, caught in that abyssal gaze.

Death lets their ankle go.

It keeps sinking, the river’s muck and shadows wrapping around it as well as a cloak, concealing all but its eye sockets. Asra turns away, toward the moonlight filtering through the water. He swims, clinging to their waist, kicking desperately, chest tight with lack of air.

All the while, he can hear Death’s laughter in his mind, soft and susurrous, gently sinister. Bubbles stream from his nose and mouth, and he knows he doesn’t have much longer left. Black begins to creep into the edges of his vision.

 _Wait,_ he thinks, chest burning. _Wait…_

He breaks the surface, gasping, involuntary tears streaming from his eyes. He glances around, unable to see anything through the mist that surrounds them—and then the fog parts, revealing a clear path through the river, to the shore. The High Priestess and the Magician both wait between the massive pillars, both still and silent, impassive spectators. Asra glances up to see the moon is past waning gibbous, almost full moon. In a few more minutes, it would be full, and he would be Death’s to claim and keep.

He’s still less than halfway across the river. Asra feels a ghostly hand tug him down and he gasps in a breath before his chin goes under, nearly swallowing a mouthful of river water. He kicks himself free from the hundreds of hands that pull at his clothes, spitting out river water and tasting ash on his tongue. Panting, he hooks their arms over his shoulders, curving their hand so they grip their wrist.

“Wait,” he whispers, watching the Magician and the High Priestess both. “I’m coming.”

He starts swimming, keeping close to the surface, scissor-kicking and coming up for air only occasionally. They weigh on him, their linked arms tugging against his throat, restricting his air, but he keeps going. He’s close, so close—he won’t give up now. He can’t.

He crawls onto the shore, coughing and retching, just as the moon turns full.

The water laps at his heeled, water-logged boot, hungry, _greedy_ , but they are both safe from Death’s grasp, now. Asra collapses, shivering, and gently extricates his teacher from him, laying them flat on their back.

“Well done, Asra,” he hears the High Priestess say.

He’s sick of hearing that. He hasn’t done well at all. He—he looked back. He _failed_. Tears prick his eyes, burning, and he lets them fall, lets himself gasp for breath and cling to the pebbles that dig into his forearms. They’re brown, now, not a trace of gray to be found, and the relief he feels is so visceral his exhale sounds like a sob.

He sits up, breathing hard, and feels Death’s cold gaze on his back. Unable to help himself, he looks over his shoulder.

Death stands on the other side of the river, the path to its looming figure cut clear through the mist that conceals the water. It seem to grow taller, larger, sharper, and he sees the shadow of its scythe stretch over the river. Asra swallows, but before he can move, before he can pull himself and them up to the meadows, a curtain of white falls over him, shielding him from the oppressive chill.

A moment later, the sensation fades. The High Priestess lifts her wing, cooing softly. Asra stares back to see that Death’s right hand, marked with Omega, has emerged from the depths of its midnight robes. Despite the distance, he can see clearly the glowing light cradled in its palm. His breath catches.

Their heart.

Death stares at him, and brings its hand to its grinning mouth. Asra watches as it bites into their heart like a pomegranate, or an apple. Asra curls forward, choking on useless pleas, and watches Death eat his love’s heart whole and swallow.

The heart he could’ve kept safe, if he hadn’t _looked back._

And now—

_(They are lost to you forever.)_

Now, Asra can only watch.

When it is done, when their heart is consumed, Death casts its gaze upon him, and turns away, melting back into the shadows of the other side. Asra barely hears the keen that rips from his throat, barely feels the heat of his tears running down his face. After a moment, he twists toward their prone form, their _shade_ , still consumed by shadows. He crawls home to them, whispering their name, touching their cold cheeks with shaking fingers.

The shadows part and dissolve in the air, but the face that stares up at him is blank, empty of all expression. His heart plummets, leaving a sickening emptiness behind, and when he swallows he tastes bile rising at the back of his throat. He swallows it down, focusing on touching them—thumbing their lower lip, feeling the delicate skin of their eyelids, tracing their cheekbones. They don’t react to his touch; their gaze is on his face, but unmoving, as still as a statue’s. When he whispers their name, there is no flicker of recognition. Nothing.

“Please,” he whispers. “Please, I’m sorry, come back, _please_.” He bows his head, pressing his forehead to theirs, wiping the water from their damp, chilled skin.

“I love you,” he breathes. “ _Please_. Come back.”

“They can’t,” the Magician tells him. “The soul stores memories, emotions, yes, but it is the _heart_ that anchors it to the body, to the physical world. Without their heart, they can’t go back with you. I’m sorry, Asra. You did the best you could.”

Asra can’t control his shaking hands. “There has to be—there has to be _something._ Some magic, some spell, I can—I’ll give them mine, if I have to.” He glares up at the Magician and the High Priestess, their respective mentors, who watch him impassively, as if he is not soaked and shivering and supplicant before them both. He looks to the High Priestess. “How can you, how can you just stand there, they—they _loved you!_ ”

The High Priestess tilts her head at him, ruby eyes gleaming. She looks as indifferent as she ever has, but the Magician glances at her, bringing their hand to cup their chin. “Papess,” the Magician warns. “We’re not supposed to get involved. Or attached.”

The High Priestess clicks her beak at him. “ _You_ , Magus, started him on this path—you gave him the pearls _you_ stole from me.”

“Borrowed,” the Magician corrects, smiling at her like it’s a private joke between them, as if Asra is not even there. Asra watches as they stare at each other, having some private conversation he cannot hear. After several long minutes, minutes Asra passes clutching his love’s shade tighter and tighter, the Magician finally sighs. They look back down at Asra, purple eyes bright in the full moon’s light.

“To give up your heart is no easy feat, Asra. I know a spell that will anchor you in your heart’s stead, but it is magic from the shadowed path. You may not survive. And it will hurt as nothing has hurt you before.” They tilt their head down at him, smiling. “Now, Asra, I ask you again: do you really _need_ them back, or do you just _want_ them back?”

Asra thinks of Death’s grin, its gleeful whisper. _Tell me, what would you do to get them back?_

“Whatever it takes,” Asra says. “Do it.”

—

A servant wakes Ilya in the middle of the third night of Asra’s sleep, pale-faced and nervous.

“Her Ladyship the Countess—” he starts, but Ilya’s already sprinting down the hall, barefoot and still in his sleep clothes. He narrowly avoids colliding with several people, calling out apologies over his shoulder and never once slowing down. He skids to a stop a few minutes later in front of Nadia’s doors, shouldering it open, and seeing Nadia kneeling down, surrounded by a ring of servants. She’s calling Asra’s name, over and over and over again, and the panic in her voice—oh, ohh, no, please, not Asra, _no_ —

Ilya pushes past the servants, breathing hard, and sees Asra seizing on the floor. Nadia’s trying to pin him down, trying to get him to stop, holding his arms and his face alternatively. An unnatural calm settles over him, the same calm he feels on the brink of an amputation, or when he’s under the library, operating under Valdemar’s watchful eye, blocking out the screams of their patients.

“Nadi,” Ilya calls, pulling her away from Asra. She fights him, but Ilya holds her fast. “Nadi, stop, _listen_ , we have to let it play out. Don’t—don’t try to hold him down, you could hurt him. Let me, please, let me deal with this.”

Nadia takes a breath, squaring her shoulders, and nods. Ilya approaches Asra on his knees, avoiding stray kicks or punches. He gently gets a hand under Asra’s stiff shoulder and rolls him onto his side. A thin trail of blood trickles down the corner of his mouth, and worry spikes through him, but he takes a deep breath before it can get too out of hand. Probably bitten his tongue during the seizure. Ilya would check, _after_ it passes. All they can do is wait.

It seems like an eternity when Asra finally goes still, his eyes still closed. Ilya carefully moves so he faces Asra’s front, and Nadia joins his side. “Can we return him to the couch?” she asks, gripping his arm. He tries not to focus on the warmth of her palm, brand-hot through the thin fabric of his sleepshirt.

“I don’t think we should. Not until he’s stable.”

Nadia gasps, eyes widening in shock, and Ilya follows her gaze to Asra’s chest. Underneath Asra’s scarf, draped across his torso to knot at his hip, is a single glowing white line. As Ilya watches, more lines appear, interconnecting and weaving together as if some invisible entity is drawing them by hand. Ilya watches as the lines—forming a sigil, he realizes now, he’s snuck and read enough of Asra’s books to recognize one—glowing so brightly they give off actual heat.

“Ilya,” Nadia says beside him, “I do hope you have an explanation for this.”

Ilya can only shake his head, helplessly. He grips her hand, and she squeezes his hand just as tightly. The sigil completes itself and flares, near-blinding, forcing them both to look away until the light dies down. With a hard swallow, Ilya reaches out with his free hand, pressing his bare fingertips to Asra’s throat—cooler than it should be. He feels until he finds Asra’s pulse.

The sigil beats in time with Asra’s heart.

—

_One last question for you, Asra. Are you listening? Good. Stay focused. What do you know of gods, Asra? Those of the ancient stories?_

_(Little and less.)_

_Well done. And what is a god, precisely?_

_We have given you the pieces, young Asra; now you must assemble the puzzle._

_Think carefully. Almost done._

 

_Asra? What is a god, in the ancient stories?_

 

 

 

_Asra?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

_(What is a god, but he who undoes Death?)_

 

_Well done, Asra. Well done._

_Yes, very good._

_(I’m not—)_

_Almost done, it’s going to hurt, now_ —

—

Asra opens his eyes and lurches forward, screaming, clutching at his glowing chest as if he wishes to tear out his own heart. Ilya catches him before he can careen off of Nadia’s bed, gripping his shoulders. In an instant, Nadia is awake and at Asra’s side, holding his hands and kneeling beside him on the bed. Asra’s scream of pain cuts off abruptly, and then he is sobbing, body curling forward into fetal position, fingers curled over his face, hiding himself from them.

“Asra,” Nadia hushes. She gently pulls his trembling hands down and cups his face in her hands, wiping his tears away. Asra turns into her touch, shoulders shaking, biting his lip to stifle a terrible wail that wrenches at Ilya’s heart. Asra’s eyes open, but when he sees her, he only sobs harder. Nadia hums, brows creasing, and rises to her knees as she pulls him close, exchanging a worried glance with Ilya, who shakes his head.

He’s never—he’s never seen Asra like this. And it’s scaring him, how helpless he is, in the face of this unknown, profound grief.

“Nadi,” he gasps, and glances over at Ilya. “ _Ilya_.” His tear-streaked face crumples and he reaches out, hand curving around the back of Ilya’s neck. Ilya lets himself be pulled forward, into Nadia and Asra’s embrace, wrapping his arms around the both of them and wondering if they can feel how _hard_ his heart is pounding. Nadia brushes Asra’s hair out of his red and puffy eyes, whispering things that are no doubt meant to coax him into telling them what’s wrong.

If Ilya knows what’s wrong, what’s pushed Asra to such despair—maybe he can fix it. He’d do anything, right now, to see Asra’s dimpled smile, or to hear his laugh again.

“I looked back,” Asra says, finally, and the sound that follows his words is one Ilya has only heard from dying animals. He shudders, fingers curling into Ilya’s shirt. “I looked back.”

It’s a phrase he repeats between sobs, shoulders shaking— _I looked back, I looked back, I looked back._ Never once does he explain what he means. Ilya wants to ask, wants so _desperately_ to ask, but the misery on Asra’s face makes him bite his tongue.

For once in his life, he can’t find anything to say.

Nadia presses closer, holding both of them, and letting them hold her in turn. She meets his gaze over the top of Asra’s head and shakes her head, just slightly, and Ilya nods.

They won’t ask him about the sigil, not just yet.

Asra weeps in their arms until dawn breaks, and they hold each other until exhaustion claims them all.

—

Three days after Asra wakes up, they receive a visitor in the palace. Ilya’s taking tea with Nadia, catching a break from Valdemar and Lucio for the first time in forty-eight hours, learning Prakran chess.

Well.

He’s _supposed_ to be learning chess, but neither of them are really paying attention to the game; he glances over, every so often, to check the pieces on the board, but his focus is mostly on the expansive garden before them, and the willow tree that stands in the center.

Nadia has been looking at the same place. He knows that because whenever he’s not looking at the willow tree, he’s looking at her, watching her stare with her brows quirked, fingertips resting against her chest.

“We should go to him,” Ilya says. Nadia lightly lays her fingertips upon his left hand and he covers her hand in turn with his right. She turns her head to look at him, smiling slightly.

“He asked for space, and time to mourn,” she says. “We shall grant them both to him.”

She’s right, he knows, but he still… he just wants to make _sure._

The doors to the veranda open behind them, and Nadia shifts in her chair, irritation flickering across her lovely face as she turns to look over her shoulder. “Chamberlain, I explicitly requested we were not to be disturbed—”

“Apologies, Countess Nadia,” a voice Ilya has never heard before says. “But I must greet an old friend, here in this garden. I will trouble you no more than this.”

Ilya jerks, turning in his chair, and sees a complete stranger. They regard him impassively, hands loose at their sides, and descend the shallow marble stairs. They breeze past both Ilya and Nadia, their steps quickening as they descend the palace staircase and enter the garden proper, heading straight for the maze.

“We, uh,” Ilya says. “I think—we should follow them. Maybe?”

He has a terrible sinking feeling in his gut.

He almost wants to squeeze her hand, seek out some assurance that his gut is wrong, that this is _not_ very, very bad news, but he doesn’t. Rather, she squeezes his palm first, and he sends her a startled look of wide-eyed surprise.

“I think that a fine idea,” she says, pulling her hand from his and rising smoothly.

Ilya nods, watching the mysterious stranger hurry across the grounds, breaking into a run. He hears their laugh on the breeze. He scrambles to his feet, following Nadia down the steps and into the maze. She seems to know every turn before they appear, every twist in the hedges, and walks with utter confidence.

“You’re, ha,” he says, “you’re good at navigating mazes, Nadia. This one, in particular. Another hidden talent of yours?”

“I designed it,” she says, with a dismissive hand wave, as if that isn’t remarkable in and of itself. “Come, I know a shorter way.”

Even with Nadia’s shortcut, they reach Asra after the stranger does, on the opposite side of the garden’s clearing. Asra’s sitting on the lip of the fountain, Faust listless across his shoulders, trailing his hand absently over the water.

The stranger stands only a few feet behind him, their hand half-extended, as if they can’t decide whether or not to touch him. Finally, they lower their hand and say, “Asra. Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Asra’s head snaps up, but he doesn’t see Ilya or Nadia—he whirls around before he notices them, standing across the garden. Instead, he sees the stranger who had walked into the palace unannounced; though Ilya can’t see his face, he can hear Asra’s joyful, disbelieving laugh, and it makes something clench hard and frightened inside him.

But it is not until he sees Asra cross to them, until he sees Asra touch their face like a believer touching a sacred relic, that he understands. The stranger laughs, and Asra laughs, breathless and delighted, pulling them close and resting his forehead against theirs. The angle is just right for Ilya to see the exact moment that Asra tilts his head and kisses them.

 _Oh_ , he thinks, dread curdling in his gut. He feels nauseous. _Oh, no, please._

He hears Asra gasp when he pulls away, hears the hitch of his breath, perilously close to a sob. Hears the thickness in his voice when he says, just barely audible, “You’re here. You’re really here?”

“Yes, love.” The stranger hiccups, grinning yet somehow looking like they’re biting back tears. “Yes. You did it.”

Ilya watches, knowing he shouldn’t, trying to swallow the lump growing larger and larger in his throat and failing. Asra laughs, though the sound is shaky, watery, on the verge of tears. He cradles the stranger’s face between his hands, and surges forward to kiss them, a kiss they eagerly return.

He had never noticed Ilya and Nadia were there. It’s as if they’re in their own little world, and no one else matters.

As if no one else had ever mattered.

His chest is suddenly very tight, and his eyes are burning.

Beside him, Nadia is stiff, shoulders squared, jaw clenched. “Come,” she whispers to him. “We must give them some privacy.” When he doesn’t move, she takes his hand, gently. He glances down when she squeezes it, and begins to pull him from the garden. Her tone is soft, but her eyes are narrowed, glassy. “Ilya, come along. They are in their own world, now.”

He follows her, reluctantly. Just before they return to the exit they had found, Ilya looks over his shoulder.

Asra and the stranger had moved from the fountain to sit at the base of the willow tree. Asra’s arm is wrapped around them, pulling them close to him, his head buried in the crook of the stranger’s throat. He clutches at them, as if letting go would mean the end of the world, and never once does he look up. Never once does he notice that the two of them are not alone, that Ilya and Nadia had been watching.

Their own world, indeed.

Ilya turns away. He tries to swallow the bitterness that has soured his tongue, tries to blink past the tears that blur his vision. Tries to breathe past the sickening pain in his chest. Nadia must hear the hitch in his breath, because she turns around the moment they are concealed by the hedges; he doesn’t know what he looks like, but it must be something wretched, because the steel in her gaze softens, and she takes both of his hands in hers.

“Come, Ilya,” she says again. “You still wish to learn chess, do you not?”

He nods, unable to speak past the lump in his throat. Nadia pulls away and turns on her heel, never looking back as she navigates her way through the maze. Ilya hesitates, looking over his shoulder, only to see Asra laughing, head bowed toward the stranger, whispering things Ilya cannot hear.

He swallows hard and turns away, hurrying after Nadia, leaving the two lovers—for that is what they must be, he realizes, there is no other option—to their own little world. And though he wants to turn back on his heel, hurry back to the willow tree, take Asra by the shoulders and _demand_ to know just _what_ was going on, here, he doesn’t.

He walks and doesn’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> if u get all of the references i made in this bigass fic (there are officially 19) i will write u a personalized 5k oneshot, no joke


End file.
